7 Changes that Impacted Facebook Advertisers in 2017

In just 2017, the site has released countless new features, ad types and reporting capabilities, and it has even changed the very tools we manage our ads with.

Are you up to date on the ever-evolving Facebook advertising platform? We’ve rounded up the top Facebook changes 2017 has seen. Take a minute to catch up.

Facebook Consumer Insights Hit the Scene

Back in April, we released the results of our very own Facebook Consumer Survey, which we conducted in partnership with Survata.

The survey included 1,500 Facebook users and shed some serious light on what today’s Facebookers see, do and experience on the platform.

For one, nearly half of all respondents said they were exposed to new products or brands in the past 30 days—AND they remembered that brand. Another 26 percent said if they clicked on an ad, they actually went through with a purchase.

We also found that 54 percent of respondents felt positive about Facebook ads—likely a result of the high quality of advertisements on the site.

Advertisers Get Refunds After Reporting Error

Thanks to errors in reporting on video carousel ads—specifically those with a link click target that were viewed on mobile browsers—Facebook was forced to give refunds to about 0.04 percent of its advertisers back in May.

Though it wasn’t an earth-shattering bug, it did drive home the fact that advertisers should always double-check their click-through rates using Google Analytics.

As CPC Strategy report Leanna Kelly put it, “In the future, if your goal is to get clicks to your site, it’s a good rule of thumb to double check those CTRs from Facebook within Google Analytics.”

Business Messaging Feature Expands

Facebook Discover—a new messenger feature that lets users connect with brand chatbots, was also released in July. With a featured bots section and dozens of other categories and sectors to choose from, it offered yet another way for brands to gain visibility on the platform and better connect with potential customers.

Discover came right on the heels of another Messenger release—group chatbots. Launched earlier this year, this feature lets group chatters bring in bots to make reservations, track scores and perform other functions.

Facebook and Google Attributions Don’t Match Up

Late this summer, we started noticing some discrepancies between our Google Analytics reports and our Facebook ones. As it turns out, the two were showing drastically different results for Facebook ad campaigns.

We dove into the problem in a blog post, but the gist of it was this: Neither site was under- or over-reporting. They simply attribute conversion sources differently—and recognizing this is the key to gleaning accurate and helpful insights from your analytics.

Power Editor and Ads Manager Merge

The tool merged with the bigger, more robust Power Editor, making ad management and creation just a little bit easier on advertisers.

According to our Manager of Performance, Sarah Rogers, the merger will cut out the hassle of bouncing back and forth between tools.

“Having both functionalities in one place will definitely make it a bit more seamless,” Rogers said.

“With the previous Power Editor, you had to toggle back and forth a lot to manage and monitor campaigns, but now you can make those optimizations in one tool. Overall, I think this will encourage better user flow and improve efficiency as well.”

Related Posts

About the AuthorTara graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a B.S. in Journalism / Business. Her passion for creative publishing and quality reporting landed her work opportunities at several companies in Massachusetts, New York and California. She is a leading voice behind CPC Strategy’s Blog. See all posts by this author here.